9 YA Novels to Enjoy with Your Kids
If you're wild for The Hunger Games and obsessed with Twilight, pick up this batch of young adult novels that will have you turning pages as quickly as your children. Family book club, anyone? By Ava Feuer,REDBOOK.
If you like fairytales, try Between the Lines
What better to read with your daughter than a book co-written by a mother-daughter team? A collaboration between Jodi Picoult, the bestselling author of My Sister's Keeper, and Samantha Van Leer, her 16-year-old daughter, this modern-day fairytale follows bookish Delilah, a 13-year-old loner so obsessed with a children's fairytale she actually wants to live in it. The fairytale's hero, Oliver, on the other hand, wishes to escape its pages. The two develop a romance across two worlds, leaving the characters - and us - to wonder how we separate reality and fantasy.
Best for: Ages 12+
If you liked The Hunger Games, try Crewel
Delve further into the dystopian fiction trend with Gennifer Albin's Crewel (October 16), the first installment of a trilogy. Crewel zooms in to a post-apocalyptic world where spinsters, young women who weave the threads of time, are called to work for Arras' Manipulation Services. But with great power - spinsters literally embroider the fabric of life, deciding where people live, how many children they have, even when they die - comes great responsibility. When Adelice Lewis is thrust into the role, she must decide between duty and self-fulfillment, weigh whom to trust, and navigate her first romance.
Best for: Ages 12+
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If you liked the Sookie Stackhouse novels, try Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Karou, the heroine of Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone , seems normal enough. A young art student in Prague, she fills sketchbooks at rapid speed, harbors ill feelings towards her recent ex, and spends hours at cafes with her best friend. But her electric blue hair is natural, and she disappears for days on end to do mysterious errands. When winged strangers appear in the sky, Karou becomes part of an otherworldly war - complete with an interworld love story. You don't have to be all about the supernatural to get caught up in the novel; Taylor often hears from fans who claim they don't read fantasy, but love her books. "I think fantasy is the best canvas for painting universal themes," says Taylor. "It is broad enough to see 'humanity' in it as a whole." Don't be disappointed when you reach the last page of Daughter of Smoke and Bone . The sequel, Days of Blood and Starlight , drops November 6.
Best for: Ages 14+
If you liked The Age of Innocence, try The Diviners
New York, New York, it's a hell of a town. The big city's a major character in Libba Bray's story of 1926 New York - the land of speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and a midwestern transplant called Edie. Behind the excitement of the roaring '20s; however, lurks a darker world of murder, mysticism, and the occult. Bray, who draws parallels between the 1920s and post-9/11 America, seeks to expose the ugliness and xenophobia thinly veiled in festive eras. As you picture The Diviners playing out in the streets, be assured that another interpretation is coming; Paramount picked up the rights to the novel, and Bray is currently at work on the screenplay.
Best for: Ages 15+
If you liked The Da Vinci Code, try The Moral Instruments
Good news: You have almost a year to read City of Bones, the first installment in The Mortal Instruments series, before the film comes out. The kickoff to what will, by March 2014, be a six-book series, introduces Clary Fray, a 15-year-old who witnesses a murder that only she can see. The battle between good and evil takes shape between demons, Shadowhunters - warriors whose job it is to rid the world of said demons - and ordinary people - also known as Mundanes. A completely engrossing series that draws you in before you even think to turn back, The Mortal Instruments may be just the thing to fill the Harry Potter-shaped hole in your heart.
Best for: Ages 14+
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If you liked Catcher in the Rye, try The Perks of Being a Wallflower
If you didn't read The Perks of Being a Wallflower when it stormed the literary scene in 1999, you must peruse its pages before seeing the much-anticipated movie of the same name. Stephen Chobsky's novel is a coming-of-age tale at its best. The protagonist, Charlie, tells his story in brutally honest letters to an anonymous recipient, missives that speak of sexuality, family, and friendships - issues adults, as much as teenagers, face on a daily basis. Your kids may not be exchanging mixed tapes, but you'll both find the nostalgia factor charming, not dated.
Best for: Ages 14+
If you liked The Outsiders, try The Raven Boys
The classic other-side-of-the-tracks story just got a little more interesting. Blue, the daughter of the town psychic, has been forewarned that someday, she will cause her true love to die. The premonition, while frightening, was never an immediate concern for Maggie Stiefvater's main character. That is until she falls for Gansey, a moneyed student at a nearby private boarding school. Like Blue, Gansey's different - his quest to find the burial place of a rumored undead Welsh noble sets Gansey apart from his clique, the Raven Boys. Part social commentary, part a tale of finding oneself, you'll breeze through through this new release, the first in a four-book series.
Best for: Ages 13+
If you liked Forever, try Tilt
You don't have to enjoy long evenings perusing classic poetry in order to appreciate the brilliant free verse of Ellen Hopkins' Tilt. Like Judy Blume's classic and oft-banned Forever, Tilt deals with the tough stuff - teen pregnancy, a romantic relationship in which one partner is HIV-positive, and the death of a sibling. Thanks to the mature subject matter and sophisticated writing, mothers and daughters often show up to Hopkins' book-signings together. "These things are part of every teenager's experience," says Hopkins. "They know somebody going through all this stuff. It's important to have stories that reflect some of the more difficult facets of being a teen."
Best for: Ages 14+
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If you liked The Godfather, try All These Things I've Done
It's 2083 and chocolate and caffeine are highly illegal. In the future Gabrielle Zevin creates, the country is being run by corrupt officials, and 16-year-old Anya Balanchine's mob family isn't following the rules. They manufacture, import, export, and sell chocolate - cocoa that eventually poisons Anya's ex-boyfriend and shines the spotlight upon her. Of course, the story wouldn't be complete without a Romeo and Juliet love story, courtesy of Anya's infatuation with the new Assistant District Attorney's son. You'll spot echoes over the here and now debate about whether to legalize marijuana, and end up going right out to buy the newly-released sequel, Because It Is My Blood .
Best for: Ages 12+
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